An Adelaide disability advocate has spoken out about accessibility issues and a lack of facilities at this year’s WOMADelaide world music festival, saying there were nowhere near enough toilets for the number of people at the event.
Key points:
- Frustrated fans say they were forced to line up for more than an hour to use the toilets
- But the director defended the event, saying a total attendance of over 100,000 had set a new record
- Ian Scobie says issues raised will help inform planning going forward
The sentiment has been echoed by dozens of concertgoers on the event’s own Facebook page, but organisers have defended this year’s festival which has set a new attendance record.
Director Ian Scobie — who has apologised to fans who were affected — said that the 2023 WOMADelaide had been the biggest in the event’s 31-year history, and that the issues raised would help inform planning going forward.
Disability advocate and researcher BJ Dee-Price was among those impacted.
She attended the festival with her husband and sons, including Max who is in Year 12 and has a physical disability.
“We went Friday evening … and we faced a series of barriers,” Dr Dee-Price told ABC Radio Adelaide’s Nikolai Beilharz.
She said that, after they were dropped off to join the queue to get in, Max was forced to ride his mobility scooter along the road rather than use the footpath.
“He wasn’t able to get up the curb,” she said.
“We couldn’t get up to the line, there were no curb cuts to take the wheelchair to follow the crowd as they were going in.”
Max told the ABC he “couldn’t enter [the] park without help from strangers”.
“WOMAD is for everyone not just [the] fittest,” he said.
Mr Scobie said the event had engaged accessibility consultant, Access2Arts, to help plan the site this year.
He said innovations included “lit and marked walkways with two-metre clearances” and “new parking, drop-off zones at both ends of the park”.
“It’s unfortunate that that individual’s had that experience, but it’s right on our priority list and Access2Arts have been at the festival all weekend and they’ll be giving us advice for what we can do next year,” he said.
Dr Dee-Price said that, later on, she and her other son were in line “for more than an hour” as they queued for the bathroom.
She said some were so desperate to go that they were using accessible toilets intended for people with disabilities.
“It’s degrading to the human condition, and I think organisers really need to understand the human condition – that we all need water, we need food, we need toilets, and if we spend half our time in those lines we’re missing those shows, we’re putting ourselves under stress.”
While “staff were amazing” in doing what they could to help, Dr Dee-Price suggested organisers revisit the event’s capacity, venue and the number of facilities.
“I would also recommend that lived experience of grabbing a wheelchair, maybe a double-pram, and having a walk around,” she said.
‘An hour to go to the loo’
Other concertgoers also reported lengthy queues to access bathrooms, with one saying he had experienced “25 years of amazing WOMADelaides for me and this year is appalling”.
“You’ve squeezed far too many people in and not increased the loos to cope,” he wrote on Facebook.
Another described the queues as “ridiculous”, while another said “we did NOT love the incredible lines and masses of people”.
“Some of which treated others with complete disrespect, stepping over us, pushing through and standing in front to get the best view when there really wasn’t room,” she said.
“In the many years we have attended WOMAD this has not previously been an issue. Too many tickets were sold this year for patron safety and enjoyment.”
Expanded capacity crowds of 30,000 attended each of the first two days of the event in Adelaide’s Botanic Park, with headline acts including Florence and the Machine, Bon Iver and Billy Bragg.
The festival’s director expressed sympathy for those who were inconvenienced, but said capacity was “within the guidelines in terms of all the OH&S requirements”.
“I’m sorry they had to wait. It’s not what we would like, it’s a standard we want to improve on, it is a standard we will be working on,” he said.
“It certainly was a big event and a big audience, you do have queues.”
‘New record’ for festival attendance
Mr Scobie said he did not want the issue to overshadow the fact that this year’s has been “the most successful WOMADelaide we’ve presented”.
“I think we should just understand the scale of what’s been achieved here.
“Saturday was the busiest but, again, last night and Friday were all sold out. It’s been fantastic.”
Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison said that this year’s Mad March long weekend was estimated to inject $128 million into the state’s economy.
